Nellie on life post-Harrington: We might as well start making the change now

So after the game? Coach Don Nelson essentially torches Harrington and talks about moving forward with Wright.

Not nearly enough room for all this in the paper, so here’s what Nellie said, followed by Al’s response.

Nellie:

“Al wants to be traded, everybody knows that, and we would like to oblige him. We’d like to get a good player for him. And he’s playing like he’s unhappy. I kind of feel for the guy because he doesn’t want to be here and it’s probably very difficult to really gear up and play up to his abilities.

“I made a deal with him that I was going to play him as many minutes as he wanted. When he surprised me with going public with wanting to be traded, it made it pretty difficult for me. And he hasn’t been playing well to go along with it, so we might as well start making the change now.

“I think the people in the league know he’s a good player and if there’s a trade to be made there, we’ll make it. But our frontline is young and some of the guys are on the bench a lot. Brandan is ready to play more. So I’m going to play him. And I hope I’m not breaking my word, but I’ve kind of been forced to change the way I go about playing time with Al.

“I just thought there’d be enough minutes between the 4 and the 3 that I wouldn’t have to worry about it, but if he’s not going to be here anyway in the future, we might as well start to think about bringing some of these younger guys along.

“Now, I’m only going to bring along the guys that are ready to play in an NBA game, don’t get me wrong. As I said before the game, Brandan is ready. I’ve held him back a few games where he probably should have played. But it’s to the point now that we know that he’s going to be a member of our team and Al isn’t, so we have to face reality and go with it.

“I think Al will be traded, but we got to wait til we get the right deal for him. In the meantime, I have to bring his replacement along. I don’t know what player we’re going to receive from him. It could be any position, one through five, it just needs to be a good player, that’s all.”

Harrington:

“I’m a B. Wright fan, so as long as he’s playing well, I’m happy for him. … We went to the bench and the bench was a huge lift. Nights like that, you got to take your hats off to them and let them guys rock. I’m proud of the bench. They did a great job.

“Whatever’s my future’s my future. But when I’m playing a game, I’m going to play as hard as I can, regardless of how many minutes it is.”